Any parent of a child with type 1 diabetes knows the importance of living in the present. To live any other way is to focus too much on those things that lie beyond our control. Better treatments. Soaring costs. A cure. But what about that other member of the family, the sibling? For Krista, who’s [...]
The world lost another human icon not long ago. It was in September of last year and most people, including me, didn’t even hear about it. In fact, I didn’t even know he was still alive–it had been that long since I’d thought about him, over forty years to be precise. Wait, that’s not entirely [...]
It has been a busy past couple of months for us with teaching, writing and a little travel to New England for the Thanksgiving holiday. But I took some time over the summer to recap for a local magazine just what our first year with diabetes was like and I’d like to share it with [...]
In spite of her diabetes, for Lia, life is pretty simple. She loves to take walks up the road, fish off a dock, and she’ll still will occasionally host in her room a miniature tea party for two. If a person is kind to her, she’s kind to them back. She never says, “but it’s [...]
“Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it.” Anne of Green Gables. When I first read about the Diabetes Blog Week, I thought it just wasn’t the thing for me. In theory it sounded great. An opportunity to engage other writers for a week on a similar topic, sharing in different perspectives, stories, [...]
It was a custom of ours for some time in our home, after we were through with our dinner, for one of us to grab Bartlett’s Poems for Occasions off the shelf and partnering with someone else at the table fan the pages until they would holler, Stop. Whichever poem the one fanning the pages [...]
Once, last week, on a day I had work that would take me away from the house, I drove Lia to the school where Franca teaches so that she could stay with her mother. It was summer vacation still and Lia was happy to be going to the school because only the teachers would be [...]
In some parts they call it catting. In others, it’s hogging or stumping or dogging. If it is trout, not catfish, you are after, it is considered art, not a sport, and known to practitioners as tickling. However, those of, shall we say, a bit more extreme-minded personality, prefer something a bit ornerier as their [...]
Other than early on when we had this beast by the tail and no idea what we were doing, there have been only a handful of occasions where we were truly and very stressed for Lia’s immediate safety. Not that there’s not enough room for that kind of intensity (or insanity) in any routine [...]
For another account of the effect diabetes has had on our family since Lia’s diagnosis I’ll turn to one of our two other children. Though I am not always a very good practitioner of this, if you can be successful in getting them to open up honestly or are yourself perceptive enough, children can be [...]